08 February 2019

CGS is pleased
to announce a new acquisition: a rare copy of the 1916-1917Colored Directory
of the Leading Cities of Northern California, which will be of special
interest to genealogists researching African Americans in California.

The award-winning
movie The Green Book, currently
nominated for five Oscars, takes its name from The Negro Motorist Green Book, a directory of safe places for African
Americans to eat and sleep when traveling in Jim Crow-era America. The Green Book was
published from 1936 to 1966, and has been widely recognized for its
significance in African American history. Less well known are the various “blue books” or
social directories that were published in black communities throughout the
country in the early 20th century to promote “race pride” and
celebrate their achievements.

Charles F. Tilghman in 1916

One
such publication was launched in Oakland, California, in 1915, when Charles F.
Tilghman, then just 18 years old, set up a printing press in his home to
produce a directory of
African American residences, businesses, churches, and other organizations
throughout northern California. It covered not only Oakland and its neighbors
but cities as far north as Sacramento and as far south as Fresno and was
liberally illustrated with photographs of notable citizens and important
buildings.

Oakland resident
Lorna Jones discovered this copy of the 1916-1917 Colored Directory at a yard sale years ago. “I knew it had value
the moment I looked at it,” she says. She consulted her
friend and fellow genealogist Electra Kimble Price. The two agreed that the
book needed to be preserved and they offered the directory to CGS with the
stipulation that it be made freely accessible online. “It’s not the only source
for names and localities, but the historical value of it—the fact that people
were collecting and putting out that information—makes it very important,” says
Price.

It is not clear if any copies survive of the first, 1915 edition. The WorldCat.org database indicates the existence of just two other copies of the 1916-1917 directory: one at the African American Museum and Library at Oakland and one at the Allen County Public Library in Indiana. Allen County has a digitized version available on its website. CGS has made our copy downloadable as a high-quality PDF file which can be searched using OCR (optical character recognition).*

"A Block owned by our race" in Oakland

By the time Tilghman
published his second Colored Directory it
was considerably expanded: “from seventy-six pages it has grown to one hundred
and forty,” the introduction boasts. It now represented “close to 10,000 Colored
People” and had 119 illustrations of “Homes, Churches, Pastors, Women’s
Clubs, Ranches, etc.” The 1916-1917 issue also reprints a letter of
appreciation from Booker T. Washington, to whom Tilghman had sent a copy of the
previous year’s directory. “I congratulate you most heartily upon issuing such
a creditable publication,” wrote Washington, in a letter dated August 21, 1915
(less than three months before his death). “It contains a great deal of
valuable information in addition to the Directory features. The section
containing cuts of homes owned by colored people in that section is very
creditably illustrated.”

Numerous
private homes are pictured, with one page captioned, “A Block owned by our
race, Oakland.” There are photographs of black churches and of the ministers
who lead them. The Fresno section carries photos of several ranches, including
the impressive “Country Home of Mr. C.E. Orr,” who “came to California in 1896,
penniless, like most of our Southern people.”

The Pilkerton Ranch in Fresno

The
directory gives insight into the concerns and interests of California’s black
families: a “Lodges and Organizations” section enumerates various fraternal
lodges as well as groups such as the West Indian Aid Association and the Negro
Welfare League of California. There are women’s clubs dedicated to art, music,
literacy, and “the uplift of humanity.” A full-page advertisement on p. 84
urges readers to “defeat the Liquor Traffic” by voting for two
prohibition-related ballot measures.

Women and children of the
Mothers' Charity Club

Perhaps
most intriguing are the advertisements. (“Patronize the Firms that Boost Our
Race,” the directory urges in its Advertisers Index). Some are straightforward,
such as William Arthur Bigby, Sr., Cement Contractor. Some are colorful, like
that of Medium Lena, Clairvoyant and Spiritualist: “I am the one that
p[r]ophesied the big earthquake of April 18th, 1906.” Ads for
grocers and milliners, saloons and funeral parlors, barbershops, candy stores,
and financial institutions bear witness to a thriving community. Tilghman takes
advantage of his role as editor by sprinkling advertisements for his printing
business throughout.The Tilghman Press would continue to operate for another 60 years, becoming the most prominent black press on the West Coast.

The
directory's overall spirit of enthusiasm and optimism is expressed in the
foreword:

The colored man's
prosperity in Northern California, certainly is more conspicuous to-day than
ever before and clearly indicates possibilities that defy the most active human
imagination to fully comprehend his final development.

In making this book available
to the public we hope to illuminate a part of the vibrant history of African Americans in California.

*To download the file, go to our Databases page, scroll down to "Searchable Finding Aids Free to All," and click on The Colored Directory of the Leading Cities of Northern California 1916-1917. Document may take a few minutes to download.